State Sen. Will Barfoot (R-Pike Road) believes the leadership in Montgomery is being disingenuous in their opposition to his public safety bill that is expected to be voted on in the House this week.
Barfoot’s legislation, SB298, would provide minimum staffing requirements for Class 3 municipal law enforcement agencies. The requirements would include a minimum ratio of two full-time law enforcement officers for every 1,000 residents of the municipality.
The bill applies to Alabama’s only two Class 3 municipalities — Montgomery and Huntsville. But, Huntsville has already said it meets the requirements. Montgomery has not.
Despite receiving broad support in the Senate, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed has been pushing back against the measure, claiming that it amounts to an unfunded mandate — forcing the city to reimburse the state for any assistance rendered without providing the resources to do so.
Montgomery’s 2026 budget allocates $62 million for its police department. Huntsville, which already clears the staffing bar, commits nearly a quarter of its entire general fund at $80.5 million.
“The legislation calls for any monies expended by the state, or anybody that the state were to engage to help Montgomery — like the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department — that those monies should be reimbursed by the city of Montgomery,” Barfoot told Yellowhammer News on Monday.
“That’s true. But the mayor himself has touted that they have continued to increase the budget as it relates to public safety. The money is there. It’s been budgeted over the past several years. So it’s not an unfunded mandate. They just haven’t been able to accomplish what they’ve set out to do.”
The legislation centers in part on a target of 400 sworn officers for the Montgomery Police Department — a figure Reed’s office has pushed back on as arbitrary or unrealistic. Barfoot says the number is anything but.
“When they start talking about this — the number is 400, by the way — that’s based on the 2020 census numbers,” he said. “But the interim chief, almost two years ago now, in April of 2024, at a public safety standing committee of the Montgomery City Council — Chief John Hall was asked how many officers were needed to be effective on the streets. He said they needed 400 to be operational, and this was the bottom number needed. That is from city council records.”
The threshold wasn’t invented by the legislature. It was established by the city’s own law enforcement leadership, in the city’s own public record.
“So that’s not an arbitrary number,” Barfoot continued. “That is from a former interim police chief — Chief John Hall — according to the records from the Montgomery City Council.”
When asked whether Montgomery currently has enough officers on the force, Barfoot said the city won’t even answer the question, which obviously raised some red flags in his mind.
“To try to figure out the number of police officers that Montgomery has — it’s almost like trying to get the nuclear codes,” Barfoot said.
“They’re not willing to tell you how many they have. They’ve said it would be a detriment to public safety if they were to release those numbers. Which tells you that the numbers are so far down that they’re afraid to put them out there.
Even members of the city council have not been able to find out those exact numbers. And that’s disheartening.”
The bill is being carried in the Alabama House by State Rep. Allen Treadaway (R-Morris), a former assistant chief of the Birmingham Police Department.
“He knows the law enforcement side of that equation,” Barfoot said of Treadaway. “I’m very thankful that he’s agreed to handle that in the House.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
